One of the greatest love stories in American history is also one of the most controversial. Thomas Jefferson had a mistress for 38 years whom he loved and lived with until he died--the beautiful and elusive Sally Hemings. But it was not simply that Jefferson had a mistress that provoked such a scand[...]
The story, told in alternating time narratives, begins in 1831 when Sally is aproximately sixty years old and is visited by a census taker called Nathan Langdon. With encouragement, Sally recounts her past to him. A past that begins when she passes into the ownership of her half-sister Martha Wyles [...]